BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: One of usual medical procedure for prevention of cardiovascular diseases is using lipid lowering agents. Despite the side effects of these drugs, finding the plants with the same effect will be useful. The purpose of this study was to compare the effect of alcoholic extract of thymbra spicata with lavostatin on blood lipid profile.
METHODS: In this experimental study, 50 adult male Wistar rats (330±20 gr) were used. The rats were randomly divided into 5 groups of 10. Group one, two, three, four and five were fed with normal diet, high cholesterol diet (%1 cholesterol), high-cholesterol diet with lovastatin (10 mg/kg), normal diet with alcoholic extract of thymbra spicata (100mg/kg) and high-cholesterol diet plus alcoholic extract of thymbra spicata, respectively for one month by gavage method. Cholesterol serum concentration, LDL, VLDL, TG, HDL and CHO/HDL, TG/HDL, LDL/HDL were measured and compared for each animal to determine the blood lipid profile.
FINDINGS: The results of this study showed that using alcoholic extract of thymbra spicata alone (62.6±1.78) in compared to control group (71.93±1.64) caused a significant decrease in the serum level of cholesterol (p<0.001), TG (52.02±1.34 vs. 72.48±1.3) (p<0.001), LDL (6.79±1.58 vs. 16.66±1.73) (p<0.001), VLDL (10.36±1.15 vs. 14.27±0.48) (p<0.001), TG/HDL (0.98±0.04 vs. 1.74±0.1) (p<0.001), CHO/HDL (1.18±0.05 vs. 1.73±0.09) (p<0.001) and LDL/HDL (0.13±0.03 vs. 0.4±0.06) (p<0.001) while there was a significant increase in HDL level (53.8±1.52 vs. 41.61±2.61) (p<0.001). In between groups with high cholesterol diet, there was no significant difference between the groups received the extract of thymbra spicata and lovastatin.
CONCLUSION: According to the results of this study, alcoholic extract of thymbra spicata not only improved lipid profile but also like lovastatin could lower blood lipids level.